Some are better ...

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The All-Star Game is July 15 in Minnesota, and there are sure to be players heading to the Midsummer Classic for whom the trip is a career highlight. Years later, we will look back and say, "Wait, that guy was an All-Star?"

It's a product of every team needing to have a player on the All-Star roster, and it's been going on for as long as there has been an All-Star Game.

Here, Sporting News looks back at the worst player from each team to be an All-Star, some based on how their careers turned out, others based on having truly dismal seasons in which they still somehow made the All-Star Game.

By the way, balloting for the 2014 All-Star Game ends Thursday night.

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A second baseman, Spivey deserved his All-Star nod in 2002, a season in which he hit .301/.389/.476 with 16 home runs. But Spivey was a classic one-hit wonder — his major league career only lasted from 2001-05, and aside from 2002, his career high was 106 games.

The 1978 Braves were a 93-loss team, but had two other All-Stars in Jeff Burroughs and Phil Niekro. Pocoroba was on his way to a negative-1.1 WAR season in which he hit .242/.312/.332 in 327 plate appearances. He was a negative-0.6 WAR player for his career.

Morales was so good in 1977 that after the season, the Cubs traded him and Steve Swisher to the Cardinals for Hector Cruz and Dave Rader. His career achievements included being in the top 10 in the National League in triples twice, but for the 1977 season, he had a negative-0.7 WAR, en route to negative-2.0 in his career.

A 21-year-old rookie when he made it to the All-Star Game, Simpson went 14-3 with a 3.02 ERA for the 1970 Reds. That success was built on shaky ground, as he had 119 strikeouts and 81 walks. He never really did harness his stuff, finishing his major league career with 353 strikeouts and 315 walks in 636 innings, and 0.0 WAR.

Hawpe's first half of 2009 was fantastic, as he hit .320/.396/.577 with 14 home runs. Some of that had to do with Coors Field, but much more of it had to do with a so-so player getting insanely hot for a couple of months. Hawpe was a 4.3 WAR player over the course of his career, from 2004 through last season.

A 29-year-old first baseman came out of nowhere to hit .323/.368/.430 in 1960. He then went back to nowhere in such a hurry, the Dodgers let him go to the Colt .45s in the expansion draft after the 1961 season. He played for Houston in 1962, then for the Braves and Giants in 1963, and then never again in the majors.

Sanchez hit 19 home runs as a rookie in 2010, 19 home runs in his All-Star season in 2011, and 19 home runs since then. He's not a bad player, but he's also 30 now, and you have to wonder how much longer he'll be able to get by on having one All-Star appearance on his resume.

Here are the final numbers for Turnbow in his All-Star season: 4-9, 6.87 ERA, negative-2.2 WAR, eight blown saves in 32 chances. Turnbow started the season with seven saves and a 0.00 ERA through nine appearances. By the All-Star break, his ERA was 4.74. In the second half of the season, it was 11.29. He lasted another two seasons in the majors.

Kranepool was 20 when he made the All-Star team, but he was actually better in 1964 (.257/.310/.393) and over the course of his career (.261/.316/.377) than he was when he had a .253/.303/.371 line in 1965, a 0.3 WAR season for him. In case you're wondering, the 1962 Mets' All-Star representative was a thoroughly deserving Richie Ashburn in the final season of his Hall of Fame career, a season in which he had a .424 on-base percentage.

Brown has played parts of five seasons for the Phillies. The only one in which the former uberprospect has posted a positive WAR was 2013. He's at negative-1.0 for his career. While he was a worthy selection to go to Queens last summer, that season is sticking out like a good thumb on a hand caught in a meat grinder.

Williams was an All-Star closer in 2002 and deserved it. In 2003, however, he had a 6.44 ERA at the All-Star break, with 22 walks and 19 strikeouts. He was traded to the Phillies six days after the All-Star Game for Frank Brooks, appeared in 28 games for Philadelphia, and then never stepped on a major league mound again.

A Gold Glove winner at third base in 1975, Reitz must have been getting recognition for his defense when he made the 1980 All-Star team because while his on-base percentage that year was a career high for a full season, it also was a even .300. Reitz was a negative WAR player for the 1980 season and for his 1972-82 career.

Gaston was a very deserving manager of the American League All-Star teams in 1993 and 1994. He also earned his berth as a player for the 1970 Padres, during a season in which he hit .318/.364/.543 with 29 home runs. But Gaston never had more than 17 home runs in any other season, and while he was a 5.1 WAR player in 1970, his career figure was negative-0.8, which is really pretty astonishing, to get to negative territory for a career even with a true standout season.

Vogelsong's career WAR is 1.5. His WAR in 2011 was 3.2. Going 13-7 with a 2.71 ERA that season, he was 11th in the Cy Young vote in the National League and deserved to be an All-Star, especially considering a first half of the season in which his line was 6-1, 2.17 with 70 strikeouts and 32 walks in 91 1/3 innings. It's just incongruous with the rest of his career as a No. 4/5 starter and sometimes reliever.

It took 16 days for the Nationals to parlay the lone career All-Star appearance of Capps, a pitch-to-contact closer, into getting stud catching prospect Wilson Ramos in a trade with the Twins. The Nationals haven't been around long enough to have any truly egregious All-Star selections — Chad Cordero's name sticks out in 2005, but he was actually pretty great for a while before getting hurt.

Wigginton hit 22 home runs in 2010, but did so with a .248 average, .312 on-base percentage, and .415 slugging percentage. His OPS at the All-Star break was .768, with 14 home runs, but a better player for an MLB showcase would have been rising star Adam Jones, who had a .757 OPS with 14 home runs, playing a much more important defensive position.

A catcher who had been third in the American League Rookie of the Year vote the previous year, White hit .273/.318/.435 with 13 home runs in 1953, which was his best season — at 1.5 WAR. That matched his career WAR total, meaning that for the rest of his time in the major leagues, from 1951-62, he was a replacement level player.

The owner of a 4.30 ERA in his career, Farmer had the job of White Sox closer in 1980, and notched 30 saves. He also issued 56 walks in 99 2/3 innings, and blew 11 saves — 27 percent of his opportunities.

Schrom had an ERA under 4.00 only once in his career, and that was in 1983 with the Twins. For the 1986 Indians, he had a 14-7, 4.54 line, giving up 34 homers in 206 innings. His major league career included only 47 appearances after his All-Star berth.

The 106-loss Tigers did not have a lot to choose from. Had their All-Star representative not been Fick, it could have been Randall Simon, or maybe Brandon Inge. Fick was the team leader with an .831 OPS at the break. He finished at .764, and then played for four teams over the next five seasons before the end of a major league career valued at 2.2 WAR.

The closer was second in the National League Rookie of the Year vote in 1994, behind Raul Mondesi but ahead of Ryan Klesko. Hudek was 27 when he made the All-Star Game in his first major league season, a campaign in which he saved 16 games and had a 2.97 ERA with 39 strikeouts in 39 1/3 innings. The problem? He also had 18 walks and gave up five home runs. Eventually, those problems caught up with the right-hander, and he spent the rest of the 1990s bouncing around the majors with little success.

On June 3, 2004, Harvey had three hits in Detroit to take his season line to .379/.418/.552 with seven home runs in 46 games. The rest of the season, he hit .230/.289/.340 with six home runs in 74 games. He played 12 games in 2005, and then never again appeared in a major league game.

Walden is not a bad relief pitcher, but his selection to the All-Star Game in 2011 was based entirely on the fact that the Angels had anointed him their closer — he went on to save 32 games that season. In four-plus seasons, Walden's career-best WAR is 0.8. He's at 0.4 halfway through this season, so how about another All-Star bid?

Coomer led the league in one category during his career: 22 double plays grounded into in 1998. In his All-Star season, the stocky first baseman hit .263/.307/.424 with 16 home runs. A .307 on-base percentage. In 1999. That is bad. So were the 1999 Twins. Brad Radke should have been their All-Star rep.

How was a pitcher with a 4.26 ERA at the All-Star break on the American League team, representing the eventual pennant winners? Coates had a 9-1 record. The Yankees were so duly impressed, they moved him to the bullpen in the second half, and he might be best known for giving up Hal Smith's three-run homer in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, an inning before Bill Mazeroski's series-ender.

The catcher's .666 OPS in his All-Star season makes you wonder if Newman had a deal with the devil. As it turned out, he was on a 108-loss team where the other All-Star options included Dave Revering, Dwayne Murphy and Rickey Henderson in a time machine, given that he didn't make his major league debut until June 24. There's still a chance for Time Machine Rickey to do it, although these words would then disappear and turn into words about Steve Ontiveros in 1995.

Presley had a pretty good run of power hitting from 1985-87, with 28, 27, and 24 home runs. His on-base percentages those years were .324, .303, and .296. For his career, from 1984-91, Presley's WAR was 0.2. He had two seasons of better than league average OPS, and 1986 was one of those, as he played for a 95-loss Mariners team.

Carter had 26 of his 29 career saves in 2003. He also had a 4.33 ERA, which actually was higher than his unimpressive 4.15 career figure. Somebody had to be an All-Star from the 99-loss disaster that was the 2003 Devil Rays, but that somebody probably should have been Aubrey Huff.

The Angels traded Spencer to the Rangers on May 20, 1973, sending him and Lloyd Allen to Texas for Mike Epstein, Rich Hand and Rick Stelmaszek. Spencer hit .300/.360/.353 from the time of the trade through the All-Star break, then .236/.305/.352 with three home runs the rest of the season. Spencer had a .307 career on-base percentage from 1968-82, and while he was a good defender, winning two Gold Gloves, that's not usually the profile of an All-Star first baseman.

Less than a year after being traded from Seattle to Toronto for Eric Thames, Delabar was in the All-Star Game. Less than a year after that, he was optioned to Triple-A. That's life for a relief pitcher sometimes, because when you pitch less than 60 innings a year, there is a serious chance for fluctuation in your statistics. Delabar was pretty great last season. His career FIPs have been 5.03, 4.08, 2.72, and 5.55. Pretty easy to find the outlier.